Bowlers need to use brains more: Dhoni

Hamilton, 2014/Jan/30 01:57:00

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India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said it was the "same mistake" of losing wickets at crucial intervals which cost them the fourth one-dayer and handed an unassailable 3-0 lead to New Zealand in the five-game ODI series.

"We committed the same mistakes when it comes to batting. We lost wickets at crucial times, which has been the case so far in this series," Dhoni said after India lost the fourth ODI by seven wickets. "But even then we were able to get close to 280-odd runs which I thought was good enough provided we bowled well on this wicket but that was not the case."

Dhoni was livid with his fast bowlers and said the pacers gave too much width and bowled very short at Seddon Park: "Right from the start, we gave away too many boundaries."

In the end, it was once again the bowling woes that hampered India in this series and Dhoni said the bowlers need to apply their mind and try to improvise: "When it comes to talent, we definitely have bowlers who can do well. But at the same time they will have to start using their brains more and improvise themselves," said a dejected Dhoni after the Indians couldn't defend 279 runs.

"The spinners bowled quite well and then the fast bowlers came back on and they again gave away runs freely, which meant that we weren't able to hang on to the pressure created by the spinners. It was a disappointing bowling performance from the fast bowlers. But the positive is that the spinners bowled really well," he added.

When asked why he chose to take off the spinners after both Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin had bowled well in their initial spells of five overs each, Dhoni replied: "Given the way how the fast bowlers bowled in the first ten overs, I wasn't sure they would be able to keep the pressure on later. So I personally thought that it's important to keep the spinners especially Jadeja and use them later, when the batsmen might have to go for the big shots."

"But the way the fast bowlers bowled in the middle overs it meant that they never really had to play those big shots. That was a crucial phase, where with the open fields we shouldn't have given away too many runs. But we were giving a boundary every over and we were not able to build any pressure," he said.

India made a couple of changes to their side ahead of this must-win game, dropping both Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina. Virat Kohli was asked to open the innings, while Ajinkya Rahane batted at number three. Ambati Rayudu played his first ODI since the Zimbabwe trip in mid-2013 and Stuart Binny made his India debut.

"We had to make these changes at some point. Raina was getting good starts but he was not able to convert those starts. Sometimes if you can take the individual away for a few games, he can relax and think freely about his game and that's the reason why we rested both Shikhar (Dhawan) and Suresh Raina in this game," Dhoni opined.

"We had a chat with Virat, and he was quite confident about opening. It allowed us to play Rahane at number three and Rayudu at number four, which allowed us to maintain the strength of our team. Rahane came in as an opener but a few months ago, along with the selectors, we decided that he is a good middle order batsman and he bats well there. We have tried him as opener earlier and it didn't work, so we should keep trying him in the middle order," added the Indian skipper.

Speaking about the pacers' performance, Dhoni said: "(Mohd.) Shami is someone who has been quite consistent, apart from this series. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been off this series but he's a good bowler. At the end of the day they need to push themselves because with rule changes it is going to be quite tough. But it hasn't been rule changes hurting us in this series, it has been bad bowling."

He has retired from Test cricket and handed over the reins to Virat Kohli but MS Dhoni has stayed back with the Indian Test team as a back-up wicketkeeper for the last Test match against Australia scheduled to be played in Sydney from January 6.

Former India captain Rahul Dravid said Zaheer Khan must contemplate his future with the team after another insipid tour since his comeback from a year-long layoff, that saw him travel to France to get back in shape.